COVID-19

I regularly drive past the testing station on Woodhouse Moor in Headingly. It seems much bigger than the one in the photo.....but again hardly ever anyone there, just the odd car

 

20000 positive tests almost yesterday.
It’s out of control. I think we are just hoping for the best now and that our hospitals don’t get overwhelmed. Could be a long winter for vulnerable people

 

Sexual health track and trace teams already have expertise reaching out and having difficult conversations with people, I presume it would also be much easier to ensure testing data goes where it needs to be. A big problem when Deloitte first got going with testing was that they weren't sharing data properly with LAs (as they weren't contractually obliged to), so they couldn't even be sure where outbreaks actually were in their area. This, the spreadsheet incident and the fact the impact of the system is minimal at best amongst other failings paints to me a picture of a complete failure of the private sector here. It's like we're centralising the stuff that shouldn't be centralised and devolving the stuff that should be centralised. You might not trust the state to be more effective than private industry, but I would without doubt trust established local authority public health knowledge than an a firm of accountants, which is what Deloitte actually is.


I don't have a problem with concept of private sector involvement per se but a nationwide response to a pandemic is not a proper market situation is it really. same with trains and utilities but thats for another debate.

 

I have no doubt that the sexual health people have expertise about that but all I wasn't sure about was whether there was a substantial amount of people to do the much larger job. It doesn't sound like there would be but we should definitely have been using their knowledge.

Deloitte are more than an accountant to be fair and the data failing was due to Public Health England (a public body) rather than a failing of any private entity so I'm not sure how you can pin that element on them.

I reckon both systems have failings. I don't particularly view LAs as particularly flexible, well staffed, adequately resourced and scalable whereas private companies like Deloitte have the infrastructure to put something together quickly but don't always dovetail completely with the existing systems and of course will want to make a profit out of anything they do. Neither one on it's own is perfect.

but once again, neither system solves the major issue that 80%+ of people with symptoms continue to walk around regardless.

 

VFM

 

This is what consultants do!

 

Proper curfew taking place in France. Everyone in certain cities need to be home at 9pm. Wow!

 

we have been completely cutting out knowledge and experience like that for no good reason whatsoever, and then paying consultants million pound wages for what we have right now. that doesn't even make good business sense to me. I would much rather we put money into attempting to scale up what we already have or at the very least use the private sectors muscle to scale up an operation designed and led by local public health teams.

They might be but I just checked their website and they have 0 prior experience in doing something like this, or anything even connected to outbreak control. Baffling that the govt decided they were a better bet. But then again they keep throwing money at G4S and Serco so it's about what we should be expecting by now.

And that is because the conservatives have spent the past decade doing their best to dismantle the state in favour of private alternatives. Well I would say that we've thrown 12 billion at private sector alternatives when a £100 excel update would have done. I would also question why any of these million pound consultants didn't spot and advise that this might cause problems down the track.

You can't stop private companies trying to profit off something but you can always adequately fund and resource local public health teams. The issues cause by the private stuff are precisely because they operate that way, whereas the issues with LA infrastructure is that it isn't being given enough resources, which to me is something that can be sorted relatively quickly. Scaling up will take time but that is where you get the military planning people on the go. These guys do logistics on large scales for a living so that's even more existing knowledge we should be drawing on without paying bloody deloitte.

 

Why? Does coronavirus only wake up after 9?

 

To be honest I don't disagree with too much of that, just simply that nobody in the UK, private or public sector had experience of large scale outbreak control.

You're quite right that we should have a combination of the two and thankfully that is what we have now.

And I think its massively simplistic to think it would be any easier, or cheaper for the local authorities to build the infrastructure. Companies like Deloitte have experience building that kind of thing regardless of the cause.

I suppose that some people just hate the private sector being used for anything at all.

 

I can't believe we're 6 months into the pandemic and people are asking these sorts of questions to be honest.

They're just trying to limit interactions between people same as everywhere else I suppose. I hope to God we don't follow through with that sort of stuff here.

 

What is Andy Burnham going on about over in Manchester?

Wants a national lockdown, but threatening legal action if Manchester is locked down in tier 3.

How can that make sense. Either you want more restrictions for the cities residents or you don't?

 

He wants the right financial support for businesses forced to close in tier 3 and the local tracing system to be enhanced ready for it. To stop them coming out and never getting it under control. He also wants staggered alcohol sales cut off points if we are to stick to the 10pm curfew.
Nothing he is demanding is unreasonable and he has every right to stick up for his residents. Good for him I say.
The problem with the government is they are leaking it to the press via media briefings and not sitting down with them and listening. Why I don’t know

 

I'm not sure who is leaking stuff to be honest, too many people involved now. Every time I turn on the news its Andy Burnham or Steve Rotherham talking!

I think the alcohol sales if fine. The taxpayer propping up the the entire economy of Greater Manchester probably less so. 67% wages for the people affected is more than fair but I guess some people are never happy.

If he got the national lockdown as he wanted was he expecting the taxpayer to replicate the whole economy of the UK?

 

Why not just extend furlough and small business loans until March 2021? Borrowing is at an all time low rates wise. We can afford it

 

The 67% is the extension of furlough isn't it? Just at 13% less which seems fair since it was never designed to go on forever.

And there's nothing to stop businesses getting loans unless they won't be able to pay it back. Standard,

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54432916 That probably answers why the government are reluctant to guarantee any more of them. I'm not sure we can keep affording it.

 

Why is that bbc article the general public’s fault?

What money are businesses paying it bakc with? Particularly with the already decimated hospitality sector?

67% is not enough of anyone’s wages. Otherwise why pay people the rest? Andy Burnhams trying to look after his people. Fair play to him. Not sure he deserves chastising for that

 

Who said it was the public's fault? Never mentioned blame.

Well the second point is the key bit. If they can't pay the money back then it isn't a loan, it's just a grant to business owners that will need to be paid for by the tax payer.

 

Well yeah but these are unprecedented times. The bill is for the government by the way. Not the taxpayer as you keep referring to

 

They are unprecedented times but I don't know what difference that makes. It still doesn't mean all the responsibility falls on the government.

Funding 80% of wages so far, funding 67% of wages going forward, and £40bn of guaranteed loans (60% of which will be lost) all sounds fair enough to me. But it's not enough apparently. Suppose people always want extra free money.

And how do governments raise money then?